photo credit: Mario Sundar
LinkedIn has added another feature to further advance our connections with individuals and their co-workers with the new LinkedIn Company Search. You were always able to find a company by searching for their name however the company search takes it a step further and provided personalized results by indicating the connections within that company, other connections you share as well as new filters to aid in the search.
LinkedIn New Company Search
The new company search is a very useful tool for job seekers as well as those that are looking to connect with companies to grow their business. The company search does the hard work for you by showing who you are connected to, the level of the connection, how many employees of the company you are connected to and the big question, how many employees does the company have on LinkedIn. This is really a great guide to see how many people in the company are on LinkedIn and who you may have to reach out to in order to be connected with the decision makers.
The “how you are connected” feature is very insightful as it is not limited to the company itself. It shows all connections you both share. I like this as maybe we are not as close to someone at the company as we are to someone not associated with the company. We would be more apt and comfortable to ask the person we feel closer to for the introduction than we would the person at the company. This only increases connections whereas feeling uneasy or uncomfortable to ask for an intro probably will lead many to not ask for it by not knowing what to say.
I performed a search for as I knew I had a connection with 1 or 2 of the employees but not all. I searched their name directly as I knew it however the search as mentioned above has filters by which to search by to receive the desired results (more on that later). 
I can see who is in my network, our level of connection, our shared connections, our shared groups, the new hires that I may have to connect with and how many employees the company has to gauge how many I may need to connect with. Is it worth me connecting to Rob Hatch? As CEO of HBW, I may at some point need to reach out to him, so connecting with him would be beneficial.
To the right of this where the meat of this is at. This box contains a quick snapshot of the connections. Sure you can look to the results on left and since we do read left to right, it would make sense to start there but I like the box on the right. 
One of the features about this that I like is the way the connections to the company are listed taking out the guess work of how many I am connected to 1st, how many of the employees are in my network and also the ease of reviewing the company stats.
As previously mentioned, shared connections are not limited to the company as we can see below, Joe Sorge and I share connections outside of Human Business Works. This is extremely useful as I can pick any one of the 8 connections and ask for a intro. Joe and I happen to share some groups so I can invite him that way. You can find this by clicking the number, in this case 7, “Employees in your network” and the information is displayed. It is the same information that appears in the search results however the results only displays 5 employees so you have to click on the link at the bottom to display all the results. Not that big of a deal as either way you are clicking to see this displayed but if you are like me and scrolling down below the fold can be a hassle, you will like the box on the right.
LinkedIn Company Search Filters
The company search personalizes the results. Once you perform a search the results will appear by the number of connections within your network to that company as well as keywords. If you are unaware of the company name or are seeking all the companies in a city that use certain keywords, you can filter the search. You can even filter your search by companies who are hiring (providing they have disclosed that information on LinkedIn). The company search video below goes into greater detail. This is not just a great tool to find other companies but it shows how users will find your company.
Did your company appear as a search result that you were targeting? Take the time to search for your company. I promise it is time well spent.
